Saturday, November 05, 2011

Unlikeable Sagal a Bandit

The popular NPR program "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me!" pokes mean fun at people, mainly those with middle-class values. Their clever creator and host, Peter Sagal, is mostly smart, very fast-witted, irreverent, and, at least to Carol and me, we of middle-class values, thoroughly unlikeable. A couple of years ago I was simply amazed to attend a grand dinner given in Orlando by Bessemer Trust for estate planning lawyers and find him to be the speaker. Unlike his performances on NPR, he was unprepared, unfunny, and boring. (What in the world was Bessemer thinking?)

Today's WSJ reports that Sagal is one of those people who runs in a marathon but will not pay the fee. According to the WSJ article (access to which does not require a subscription), these sorts of people are called "Bandits" in the world of running-event sponsors. I'm surprised he is a runner, but am not surprised that Sagal does this sort of thing if he is. (But, yes, how bourgeois of us to think so.)